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7/05/2011 @ 3:09PM473,675 views

Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal

Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or decriminalize drugs in the United States. Fortunately, we have a real-world example of the actual effects of ending the violent, expensive War on Drugs and replacing it with a system of treatment for problem users and addicts.

Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal’s decision 10 years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked.

“There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,” said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.

The number of addicts considered “problematic” — those who repeatedly use “hard” drugs and intravenous users — had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said.

Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor added.

“This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies.”

Many of these innovative treatment procedures would not have emerged if addicts had continued to be arrested and locked up rather than treated by medical experts and psychologists. Currently 40,000 people in Portugal are being treated for drug abuse. This is a far cheaper, far more humane way to tackle the problem. Rather than locking up 100,000 criminals, the Portuguese are working to cure 40,000 patients and fine-tuning a whole new canon of drug treatment knowledge at the same time.

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Human nature I am talking about, not societal differences. On the ‘inside’, people are basically the same. We all have the same need for love, companionship, respect. To varying degrees we all have anger, temper, are self centered, along those lines we are all the same, in a general sense.

I do know why people use drugs. I was 19 when I started in ’68, quit about 71. Like I said in my 1st post on P1, I am a “’60′s survivor”. You are correct, I expected it to be fun & it was. I had a blast taking LSD. I took it about 150 times. I do NOT recommend it, but people need to be free to decide for themselves. I never became addicted to any thing.

The only substance that I would use that I used then is cannabis. I was motivated to start by media sensationalism. I learned that the govt was lying about cannabis & this caused me to ask “what else are they lying about?”.

By the time I used cannabis & a few other things, I had already been using alcohol for about 3 years, starting while I was still in HS. I don’t recommend that either. It is at least as dangerous as heroin, yet is legal…never used H.

If you choose to promote prohibition you are part of the drug use problem. Prohibition is worse than legalization & control. More people die from legal Rx drugs than from prohibited ones, so we know that safety is not the motive behind prohibition. Big $$ is. It always has been.

You don’t know the history behind & the motives for, drug prohibition. You need to look those up.

The DSM-IV and the ICD-10 are both used in the United States. My understanding is that the ICD is used for clinical diagnosis, while the DSM is more useful in research, and that both publications are used interchangeably in this manner not just in the U.S. but worldwide. The AMA’s DSM is chosen over the U.N. WHO’s ICD a bit more often in the U.S. than in the rest of the world (for obvious reasons), but the categories and codes of the two publications are synchronized at every revision. so the code describing a particular disease or condition in one will point to that same condition in the other. But in any case, the ICS is the official diagnostic system for mental disorders in the U.S., not the DSM.

I don’t know if there is a widespread ‘major misunderstanding’ concerning the exact nature of the changes Portugal enacted, but I did notice the use of the word “decriminalization” rather than “legalization” in Mr. Kain’s article headline. It wasn’t immediately clear to me whether this meant Portugal had done something truly different from Legalization theory, or if they had just enacted Legalization while pretending they weren’t because they gave it a different name using words with fuzzier definitions, in the time-honored tradition of governments everywhere. I figured it would be explained in the linked article (a Cato Institute White Paper), and it was. Portugal has not legalized or even decriminalized manufacturing, distribution, or anything else related to drug trafficking; nothing has changed on that end, and the ‘war’ goes on, as you said. Your brief description of the new system is also fairly accurate, minus the part about being arrested for possession. Both possession and consumption of drugs were downgraded from a criminal to an administrative violation. Administrative violations are similar to traffic violations; they are non-criminal and therefore do not warrant an arrest; offenders are given citations to appear in court and pay a fine. Someone caught using drugs right in front of police would no more be arrested than if they had been caught running a red light. This is explicitly explained on page seven of the linked article:

“Even in the decriminalization framework,police officers who observe drug use or possession are required to issue citations to the offender, but they are not permitted to make an arrest. The citation is sent to the commission, and the administrative process will then commence.”

You seemed very serious about having gone and actually read all of the linked article, so I’m certain you must have read the above quote. Perhaps you just forgot? It happens to the best of us, even those of us who don’t smoke weed.

Moving on to the third paragraph of your comment: Contrary to what you claim, quite a few of the questions you outline are indeed addressed in the White Paper or its related documents. For instance:

“Portugal, whose drug problems were among the worst in Europe, now has the lowest usage rate for marijuana and one of the lowest for cocaine. Drug-related pathologies, including HIV transmission, hepatitis transmission and drug-related deaths, have declined significantly.”

That quote is from an article that appeared first in The Freeman in 2011, but is now directly linked from the White Paper report as related material. There are plenty of other answers for you there…but as I look more closely at the final three paragraphs of your comment, I am becoming certain that you are not actually interested in answers to your questions, as that would greatly reduce their capacity as rhetorical bludgeons. Someone seeking answers would have read the linked material–as you imply you did–and would have learned enough even in a quick skim to keep from asking if drug arrests have decreased(there aren’t any “possession” drug arrests anymore), or to imply that the panel deliberates on whether someone’s ‘usage level’ is ‘rising above the decriminalized level’(they don’t), or to imply that the panel can send people to jail(they can’t), etc. etc.

Nevertheless, you have made your distaste for this type of policy quite clear. Very well…what, then, are solutions that you would propose? That is not a rhetorical question; if you choose to answer it I will read your reply with interest. Here is where I stand: The “drug problems” in this country are individual, and can only be met and overcome on an individual basis, by the individuals in question. A Macro(government) approach cannot provide a solution to this, instead, it has greatly strengthened, expanded, and exacerbated the original problem many times over, in addition to creating a myriad of other problems, in the familiar and tiresome way that all government ‘solutions’ do. At best, the War on Drugs has been a Stalemate, 80 years and nothing to show for it. Attempting to fight our tendencies to indulge our more basic natures by way of government proxy is not one of our best ideas.

yet again we see certain goverments refusing to accept legitamate research and long term studies.has anyone researched how many ministers,senators have been lobbied with this new study? in the u.k.we sack the head of the drug advisory for not towing the party line! media backlash of course

Um – the article that Mr. Kain wrote about was neither “research” nor a “long term study”. It was a report from a government agency based on their statistics, and it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, reflecting the methodology in data collection more than the objective reality.

You have made some valid points, Dots, but theres no need to troll every response and insult the people that didn’t (likely) see said valid points given that they are a page down.

Yes, there is a pretty huge difference between ending the criminalization and incarceration of drug addicts and legalizing the use of drugs. Portugal did the first. However, from an individual perspective and not a societal perspective… there really isn’t much difference.

Do any of the meth addicts here in Colorado really care that its illegal? Not unless they get caught. Am I going to run out and start doing meth if its legalized? Nope. On a personal level, there really is no difference between legalization and decriminalization as far as how people will act.

On a societal level, legalization allows for regulation, which may, in the long run, be better. You wanna do heroine? Go ahead. But you have to register to buy it. And if you cause a car accident or anything that harms another person, whether you test positive or not at that moment, you are a registered drug user. And that is not going to be looked on favorably.

This is of course assuming that you extend the term legalization to all drugs, and not just marijuana. Personally, in the interest of transparency, I support legalization of marijuana and decriminalization for everything else. I think people should be responsible for themselves. I live in Colorado where medical marijuana is allowed. I have an stage IV Endometriosis that has me on pain killers almost constantly. Would I rather use marijuana for pain management? Yes. I have found it to be more effective while not getting me as ‘high’ as Vicodin and Percoset. Have I applied for a license or have any intent to use it? No. I have a 3 year old little girl and even though I think its better for me, I do not think its better for her. Maybe I’m a strange exception, but I do believe people will judge their use or non-use of any substance by their sense of personal responsibility and their values. And if they don’t, perhaps we should encourage that sort of behavior by giving them the option to make their own mistakes without being criminalized?

First, the article did NOT say that Portugal “end[ed] the criminalization and incarceration of drug addicts”. The original article clearly states that drugs are not legal in Portugal, they merely instituted a system where the arrested person appears before an “addictions panel” who “recommend[s] action based on the specifics of each case”. Nowhere did I see that incarceration is not one of the options. We already have the same thing in many places in this country, they’re called Drug Courts.

Second, you are incorrect that there are not differences even on the individual level. In the simplest terms, substance use/misuse is something that is determined the same way humans (and most sentient beings) take any other action: When the reasons to use outweigh the reasons not to, the person uses. When the reasons not to use outweigh the reasons to use, they stop. Those reasons vary widely from person to person, and even for the same person over time, but it really is that simple. And societal norms do affect those reasons, on both sides, the individual uses to make their decisions. Consider for example the high incidence of alcoholism in Native Americans. Whether this a matter of socio-cultural differences (e.g. the acceptance of underage and/or excessive drinking as a matter of course rather than a deviant behavior) or genetic factors, you simply have to allow for the presence of similar differences between our population and the population of a country on the other side of the ocean with a very different culture. (Incidentally, I grew up in a city that had a population near 40% NATIVE Portuguese. There were remarkable differences in areas such as work ethic and duty to family, which DO factor into the likelihood a person is going to use/misuse/continue to use drugs.)

For the most part, true “addicts” are completely aware, and they do care, that using is illegal. The reasons they use simply outweigh that consideration. To the beginning user, the casual or recreational user, the presence of laws against trying cocaine or meth or heroine are a potent factor in dissuading experimentation or using just for the fun of it.

I note that you allow for the necessity of SOME regulation. I would assume you would agree that there should be, for example, age restrictions, that we don’t allow 12 year olds to pick up morphine from the grocery store shelf? Tell me – how well has that worked for alcohol or nicotine?

I also note that your argument relies on personal responsibility – that people should be allowed to make their own choices and live with the consequences. I completely agree – the possibility of incarceration, however, is one of those potential consequences.

All of this is moot, however. The entire basis for Mr. Kain’s blog is invalid. He attempts to make the following point:

“Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or decriminalize drugs in the United States. Fortunately, we have a real-world example of the actual effects of ending the violent, expensive War on Drugs and replacing it with a system of treatment for problem users and addicts.”

Unfortunately, there is nothing in the article he calls attention to that supports his position. The report released by the Portuguese health experts (which does not appear to be a scientific study and has conclusions that are suspect) makes no claim as to whether drug use overall decreased or increased. Decriminalizing (some) use does not mean the government of Portugal has in any way lessened it’s law enforcement efforts at eradicating drug manufacture, importation, or sales. Mr. Kain attempts to imply that Portugal ended its war on drugs and drug use went down, and neither claim is supported in the article he uses as evidence. (In addition, the article clearly states that the change in Portugal’s law can not be credited entirely for the results they claimed.)

Incidentally, I am in no way opposed to the concept that treatment is preferable to incarceration in MANY cases of drug USE, which is all that happened in Portugal. I am not entirely opposed to the decriminalization, perhaps even the legalization, of marijuana (particularly for medical purposes). But Mr. Kain’s blog is an example of what NOT to do in furthering those efforts. It’s counterproductive. If “trolls” like me can see the problems with his argument, you don’t think policy makers will as well?

America’s war on drugs has rarely looked at the demand side of the equation. Instead, it has largely focused on choking off supplies and imprisoning distributors and users. Despite every high-profile arrest and seizure of drugs, the drug trade persists, however.

No matter the risks, suppliers will find a way to bring drugs to users. The key to reducing the trade is to dry up demand.

Exactly. In order for legalization to work in reducing usage, you have to make hurdles to obtaining them and incentives to get off them. But, you need to make sure your hurdles and incentives don’t make black market drugs worth their cost and effort. It’s a balancing act.